Over the past few weeks, while everyone was sexually gratifying themselves to the new Animal Collective (no offence, I listened to it too), I enjoyed an upcoming release from Slumberland Records. The self-titled debut from The Pains of Being Pure at Heart is out soon and has already been added to my canon of great albums from 2009 (the only entry so far besides Face Control by Handsome Furs).

Although they sound like indie pop from London, Bristol, or Glasgow, the Pains are actually a group of stateside (New York, New York) fans of the British independent music of the ’80s and ’90s they’ve so accurately recreated. Specifically, they idolize the unclean jangly guitars, hushed vocals, and steady drumming of bands from the C86 scene, the peaceful Sarah Records, and others moving all the way into the shoegaze experiments of Creation Records. To pinpoint it as closely as possible, they sound likeStrawberry Wine-era My Bloody Valentine (thanks Victor) or maybe Another Sunny Day (which I’ve included at the bottom of the post so you can be the judge).